Most of us know Elizabeth I only as the powerful queen she became. The Virgin Queen. Gloriana. The pale, jewelled figure in the Phoenix portrait, a woman who ran England on her …

I expected to be charmed. Henry VIII is the king everyone knows, the one from the rhyme, the giant standing square in the famous portrait. I went round the places that carry …

I did not expect Rome to have reached this far. I knew the Romans came to Britain. I had just never pictured them building a spa this far from home, in a …

Some nights you just want comfort food. It was a cold evening in early December, I had spent a few hours in Selfridges, and I had not booked anywhere. Selfridges in December …

I had Westminster Abbey near the top of my London list, and the Abbey had other plans. The day I went, it was closed to visitors. Catherine, the Princess of Wales, holds …

There is a stretch of the South Bank, somewhere between Westminster Bridge and the London Eye, where I always stop. Across the river, the Houses of Parliament line the water like a …